How to Make Mini Pinboards

Before I get started with this Mondays DIY, I thought I'd just give you the heads up that painting on to these cork pot stands isn't going to end happily. Don't spend time creating, carving and cutting stencils - you'll only end up with at least an hour of your life you can't get back and abandoning the project for a good month to recover. Just letting you know.

Add those 15 layers of paint with no visible difference to the opacity:

Told you.

I'm a fan on storage / space saving / accessories being decorative as well as functional. I've made a speech bubble noticeboard before and this project largely follows from that - creating pinboards that are decorative if not in full use, three times lucky.

As the paint was a huge fail [I should have known, these cork pot stands were only ever going to absorb everything] I pondered on what to use instead for a few weeks until I decided sticky back plastic deserved a come-back in my life and found a nice roll of embossed light-gold plastic in my second home. A little pricey - but I used such a small amount, this has many a projects-worth for your pounds.

I tried three [OK, two] different styles to try out the vinyl - the first was a simplistic geometric style - made simply by cutting small triangles from the plastic [thank goodness for the guidelines on the back]:

...and placing in a fairly random style directly on to one of the corkboards:

Although the plastic adheres really well to the cork, it isn't permanent - unlike if used on paper - and can be moved about if you change your mind on the placement [or in a couple of months, the design!]

The second design was a little more intricate and I opted for a short and typical 'hi' which I drew free-hand and transferred to the back of the plastic by taking all my pent-up aggression out on the reverse:

I cut the majority with scissors, but for the slightly more intricate parts - that needed a smooth line and not a creased mess that turning scissors around would have created - and detail of the 'h', I used a craft knife. Remove the backing and test yourself with how well you can centre your design:

For the third and final board, I re-used my animal head pins to add a little functionality and used them as hooks - if you fancy making them for yourself, you can see how here.